A local designer takes Evanston’s central cottage on a new path
round table Walk around the house for two minutes The column takes readers inside some of Evanston’s most distinctive residences. We aim to showcase the history, style, architecture and design of homes across the city, from large lakefront residences to cozy carriage houses, modern apartments and everything in between.
Evanston designer Cinda Jo Perry’s home is located on Florence Street near Wilder Street, in the neighborhood often referred to as West Evanston Arts District. A worn gem in the rough, you made it shine.
She bought the 1,300-square-foot home in 2010. Her son, a contractor, said it would be a money pit. Her friend Mary was completely silent when she first saw this.
“Everyone looked at it as a deconstruction except me,” Perry says.
But one of Perry’s best friends from school grew up in this neighborhood, and her friend Scott Seltzer’s parents owned Purwin’s Cake Box next door at 1124 Florence Street. She saw the potential of the house.
The bright and airy remodeled home, built in 1903, now features an improved floor plan and has lots of interesting details.
“The place is so small, you can’t add much,” Perry says.
The comprehensive redesign took over six months and included incorporating some of the original features into the new design.
The home benefited from additional insulation and new energy-efficient heating and air conditioning systems. Perry also added underfloor heating and intends to add solar panels to the coach house in the future.
The first floor and basement were expanded by less than 2 feet, with only 4 feet added to the second floor to accommodate the bathroom. “I’m not here to add space,” Perry often tells her clients. “I’m here to do what I can with what you have.”
Living room
The foyer previously opened directly into the living room, interrupting the living room wall that now houses built-in appliances and a television. Perry closed the opening, so that the parlor became its own small room leading to the dining room.
Perry first saw the house’s new front door leaning against the wall at the Evanston Lumber Co. It was priced at $200 and featured a fleur de lis design engraved on the glass. The previous parlor window had stained glass that needed replacing. So Perry’s brother-in-law designed a new leaded glass window with lilies in it as well.
I found Perry Two offices in the local Indonesian market. Her carpenter carefully installed the baseboard, countertop and shelves around it leaving a depth for a shallow entry storage alcove in the foyer.
Early in the remodeling process, when a friend remarked that she’d never seen that color of wood flooring before, Perry told her it was “just dirt and old.” She sanded the floors, leveled and reinforced the supporting joists, then sanded and finished the floorboards with a light oil-based stain and polyurethane.
Front stairs
This stunning stair railing design catches the eye with its Victorian angular wooden balustrades. Her son didn’t like it. Perry disagreed. “That’s why I bought the house,” she says. “When I peeked out the front window, it caught my eye.” After the demolition phase of construction, it lay in the rain until Perry convinced the builders to return it to its former location.
kitchen
The kitchen has a new skylight and new tall casement windows that open up the space to the deck and patio, making the kitchen feel larger.
The English pine cabinet (aka hutch) came with a door, but the hinges were on the wrong side, so Perry kept it open and added strip lighting from IKEA. (The cabinets are IKEA, too.)
The main countertops in the kitchen are made of hammered black granite, and Perry, who loves mixing materials, included a butcher block island. Adding a pantry meant she didn’t need as many cabinets.
Master bedroom and bathroom
The house’s original side walls were too low for Perry’s previous bed frame. I found a new carved wood headboard, dresser and bedside table at Whippletree Antiques in Wauconda. The $425 set features the same 1900s “spoon” carvings as the rosettes on the door’s edge. Perry even found a newspaper dated June 6, 1944 (“D-Day”) under the linoleum of the master bedroom closet.
Guest suite downstairs
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The basement apartment is now set up for rent as an Airbnb unit. credit: Ellen Galland -
The basement now contains a small kitchen that was once a laundry room. credit: Ellen Galland
By removing a deteriorating section of foundation wall, Perry was able to expand and improve the entrance to the basement apartment from a side yard. Initially, she intended to live in the house alone. But after meeting several neighbors whose homes contained small apartments, she decided to convert the basement into a rental apartment with a small kitchen that had previously been a laundry room.
No one thinks of it as a basement anymore, Perry says. One of her Airbnb guests suggested that this beautiful space be referred to as a “guest suite.”
Next, Perry hopes to design a house that can replace her garage. She wants to install solar panels on the roof, rent the second floor, and set up a sculpture studio next to the garage in the basement.
Berry trained in Brazil, Ireland, and New York City, and describes her design interests as eclectic. She asks her clients how they want to live and navigate their homes, marrying new and old styles, rather than focusing on current trends. So far, it’s working.
Perry says that no one has ever looked at her finished work and said, “Take it out.”
